There were warning signs that staffing would be a problem within the first week after the election, when Trump and his senior advisors were somehow surprised to learn that most White House staff were political appointees. (This revelation apparently prompted President Obama to devote more of his last months in office to preparing Trump for what the job involved.) As is typical, many Obama administration officials remained at their jobs until they could be replaced. But Trump, who is president of the United States, is now talking openly about shadowy "deep state" conspiracies against him.

The confusion about who would or would not serve Trump's agenda manifested itself yesterday in the firing of US Attorney Preet Bharara. Trump's DOJ asked all 46 remaining Obama-appointed US Attorneys to resign on Friday. This is normal, but Trump it contradicted a personal invitation Trump had made during the transition to Bharara to stay on. As a result, Bharara declined to resign, causing Trump to fire him--but only after violating Justice Dept. protocol by attempting to contact Bharara directly to pressure him to resign voluntarily. (Because the DOJ is supposed to be politically independent, US Attorneys cannot normally take phone calls from the president--especially when the president's own personal dealings fall under that attorney's jurisdiction.)

Trump's refusal to hire people to do the actual work of government is having varied results. At the State Department, which has been particularly hard hit, surviving staff members tend to believe it is intentional and that Trump intends to conduct diplomacy mostly through military threats. This week, a spokesperson for the State Department was unaware that the Mexican Foreign Minister was taking meetings with Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner at the White House--which is sort of like the Defense Department not being informed if Mexico had invaded Texas.